Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...
The 24 Hours of Daytona results changed after race day. Ford announced its LMDh program set for a 2027 debut, but it specifically focused on returning to Le Mans. Speaking of sports car news, there was a race in Australia, and BMW went 1-2 with the #32 Team WRT BMW of Kelvin van der Linde, Sheldon van der Linde and Augusto Farfus took victory. NASCAR announced it would not make any tweaks to the playoff format. It also ran at a quarter-mile in a much smaller football stadium. Lewis Hamilton crashed in testing. Some IndyCars tested in Thermal, including Prema making its first laps, which brings us to what has crossed my mind.
How Should IndyCar Handle Qualifying if More Than 27 Cars Show Up?
We are less than a month until the IndyCar season opener from St. Petersburg, and there are still unanswered questions.
Normally, entry list size only mattered when the number was on the low side. Two cars can swing the mood greatly. Twenty-four feels a lot better than 22. The higher the better was the view. If there was 25 and word of a 26th being organized, we were pulling for that 26th car to make it. A good grid is a full grid.
Entry list size is considered a little differently as IndyCar begins its 2025 season, the first year with the charter system. Twenty-five teams are charter holders and are guaranteed a place in every race outside that one at the end of May. The grid is open to other entries that do not hold charters to participate, but there is a limit, two to be specific.
Only two non-chartered or "open" entries will be permitted into every race outside that one that has 33 at the end of May. That means at most 27 cars can start a non-500-mile IndyCar race in 2025. That is important to know because, as of this moment, there are 27 cars entered for St. Petersburg and we will likely see at least 27 cars entered for every IndyCar race that isn't held on Memorial Day weekend.
The grid is at capacity and we haven't even showed up to the first race weekend. With the 27-car limit set, you would think a structure would be in place for if a 28th car arrives. Less than a month from the first qualifying session of the season, that is not the case.
This would be of particular interest to Prema, which will field two cars and those are the only two open cars planning on running the full season. One additional entry at any round puts Prema's place on the grid in question. Two additional entries could see the entire team miss a race..
A 27-car limit poses a problem for IndyCar when it comes to qualifying. How will it handle it?
Ovals are one thing. Single-car runs are what take place with a two-lap average determining a place on the grid. Cars go out in reverse order of the entrants' standings. That is simple and can continue onward whether there are only 27 entries or more. It could be a problem for the open entries that are not full-time as they will be stuck going out first when the track is less rubbered in and not in the most ideal conditions, but that is not as big of a headache as road and street course qualifying.
Contemporary IndyCar has never faced the proposition of a car forced to qualify for a road or street course event. The three-round, knockout format has determined rows seven on down in the first round with rows four through six set in round two before the final three races are settled in the final round. At no point has this structure had to determine if a team starts a race, and it is a format that does not quite work if it is determining if a car goes home.
The first round is split into two groups to lessen traffic for the field. Instead of 27 cars going out at once, it would be a 14-13 split, still crowded but not as bad as it could be. Due to the two groups and the second group hitting the track with more rubber laid down than the first group, qualifying times tend to be quicker for the second group. In response to this, the spots for 13th on down are set by position in your qualifying group.
Seventh in group one takes 13th, the inside of row seven. Seventh in group two takes 14th, the outside of row seven. This continues until the spots are filled that way the group one runners are not all placed behind the eliminated cars from group two who had the better track conditions.
This system doesn't quite work to determine if a car should make the field or not. There should be a level playing field when determining what car will race over another. Even if you based it off of final position in round one group, the track conditions change so rapidly that having to qualify in the first group doesn't even give you a chance to respond if another open entry was in the second group. The time is likely not going to be good enough, but it should to come down to whether or not a car ends up seventh or eighth or ninth in an entirely different set of cars.
We have seen odd qualifying groups that are top heavy on entries. While the third practice results determine the qualifying groups with odd-positioned cars being place in one and even-positioned cars placed in another, third practice results can be fluky and we could have a qualifying group that has three Penske cars, three Ganassi cars, two Andretti cars and a McLaren. That is nine of 13 or 14 cars. If an open car could break into seventh or eighth, that would be incredible, but the other group likely has a friendlier set of competitors for the other open entries.
In that gauntlet group where ending up tenth would be rather respectable, it could cost a team a spot in the race due to the competitive imbalance. The other two open entries would just have to end up ninth or better against weaker competition and that is more favorable. I am also just realizing, what happens if the final two open entries end up in the same position in their respective qualifying groups? How is that tie broken? As we mentioned before, lap time cannot be a fair tiebreaker.
IndyCar is in a hairy spot with the 27-car grid limit. Even if you are thinking, "Just put all the open cars in the same qualifying group. That solves it." It doesn't, or at least it sets up another uncomfortable scenario where third in a qualifying group could end up missing the race.
Let's say there is a 28th entrant, an additional Andretti Global car, for a race, and it is put in the same first round group as the two Prema cars. That would be fair. That would be the best way to decide who makes the field and who doesn't, but it opens the door for the top three in that group to be Prema, additional Andretti entry and Prema, and that second Prema car, which could have run the third-fastest lap in the first round of qualifying will go home.
That is the nature of the beast, but that is also a bad optic. It doesn't look good when the third-fastest car is missing the race.
What is the solution? It is going to be extra, but it could fit into the procedure...
Pre-qualifying.
Like Formula One of the 1980s and 1990s, have a separate session to determine who will have the chance to qualify for the field. If more than 27 cars are entered for a race, take the open cars and have them participate in their own session to determine who will advance to qualifying with qualifying only setting the grid and pre-qualifying be what decides who makes the race.
It avoids any potential competitive imbalance in track conditions for the open entries while also preventing the third-fastest in a qualifying group from being the car that misses the race.
Even the best solution has its flaws. For starters, the open teams would have to do an extra session, which means running more laps, which means using more tires, and they aren't going to get an extra set for pre-qualifying. It also means we need more time to run another session. Those could all be easily solved.
One, in pre-qualifying, teams are only allowed to use one set of primary tires. This prevents divergent tire strategies and diving into the pit lane in hopes to change to alternate set while a car's competitors are on track.
Two, if IndyCar can run the final round of qualifying as a six-minute group for six cars, it can put five minutes aside for pre-qualifying at the start of the qualifying period. At the moment, pre-qualifying would likely only involve three cars, maybe four. We aren't going to see ten cars need to participate in pre-qualifying anytime soon. This can be a minor addition to the format already in place, and the round one qualifying groups can be set with two spots open in the second group to allow the open cars that make the race to cool off before actually running to set their starting position.
Hopefully, IndyCar has a plan in place, but we are a month away from the season opener and at no point in the six-month offseason have we heard IndyCar lay out what the plan is in case 28 cars enter a race, especially on a road or street course. Status quo is not acceptable under these circumstances. With a change in how many cars can start a race and protection in place for 25 members of the grid, something new must be done for the sake of competitive fairness for those few teams that must qualify.
With no plan out there, this pre-qualifying idea is likely the best one IndyCar could come up with. It is better than making no changes whatsoever and wondering why everyone is angry when they have egg all over their face.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about the Bathurst 12 Hour, but did you know...
Chase Elliott won NASCAR's Clash from Bowman Gray Stadium.
Chase Sexton won the Supercross Triple Crown round from Glendale with finishes of third, third and second. Cooper Webb, Ken Roczn and Eli Tomac split the three races and finished second, third and fourth respectively over the weekend. Jordan Smith won in the 250cc class after finishes of second, third and first. Cole Davies won the first two races but finished eighth in the final race, placing him third overall behind Haiden Deegan in second (3-2-4).
Coming Up This Weekend
Asian Le Mans Series has a doubleheader in Dubai.
Supercross is on the east coast with a round in Tampa, Florida.
